Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Fingerpaint Fun!

This morning, despite my cold, I thought I would try my hand at making some homemade finger paint. While I worked on making the homemade kind I let the kids play with the store bought kind that they got for Christmas. So I covered the table, covered the kids and let them have at the finger painting. :)

In a medium pan, mix all the ingredients together to make the finger paint. Cook over low heat 10 to 15 minutes. Keep stirring the finger paint mixture until it is smooth and thick. After the finger paint has thickened take the pan off the stove and let the mixture cool.

After cooling, divide the finger paint into storage containers depending on how many colors you would like. Add a few drops of food coloring to each container. Stir the coloring in to the paint to determine the shade of color. You're ready to finger paint! Cover tightly when storing.

I am storing my finger paints in stage 2 baby food jars (glass). I think they are just big enough for the little ones fingers and they hold just enough of the paint.

The colors I made are much more vibrant than the store bought ones that we have. I am very impressed. The kids loved helping me mix the colors in too.

I will note that I didn't wait for the mixture to cool completely. I let it cool for about 10 minutes or so and then divided it into the jars. By the time I was ready to color it, it was cool enough for the kids to help.

3 comments:

Oh Alison, where do you get the inspiration?Your kids are so lucky to have Martha Stewart's twin as their mom! I featured you on my Monday Mentions blog post- I don't get a whole lot of traffic to my blog, but I thought that your posts needed to be shared!

Thanks so much Amanda! I appreciate the shout out! :D I just do this stuff for fun. My mom was a preschool teacher when I was growing up so I have many fond memories of all these crafty things and I want to share those experiences with my kids. I think my next project is going to be marble painting! :D

Wonderful colors! I STILL love to finger paint! Something about getting my fingers all gooey, and knowing it's supposed to be that way....I don't know- and then the smoothness of the paper and the way the paint gushes out from under each fingertip....What a wonderful mom you are! One time Jonathan and I got super brave and "toe painted"-it was pretty fun!